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Castro de Baroña

Actually, I’ve been pretty busy! My friend Hanna from Germany (who is mentioned in many previous posts from years ago when she lived in Santiago too) came to visit, and we had a total blast during the (few) days she was here. Among other adventures we embarked on together (including getting lost in en medio del monte and very long nights out), we took her to Castro de Baroña, the ruins of an old Celtic settlement perched high on a cliff jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s quite a walk to get out to this point, and along the way, there are many little towers of stones that people have left as a reminder of a long-lost culture.

Every time I visit a place like this, I just can’t believe what hard-asses the Celts were. I think about that pretty often, living here in Galicia. I mean, I (a tough, Midwestern-bred Chicagoan) suffer enough in winter here; I can’t imagine having to brave the Galician elements back before modern technology and readily available hot water (well, sometimes, anyway). And they chose the most inhospitable, windy, rocky, steep, treacherous area on which to build their homes (overlooking what was, to them, the end of the world). But then there’s the view: